


A Week at the café

by Hermit9



Category: The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Gen, Madness as release, escaping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 21:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29478132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hermit9/pseuds/Hermit9
Summary: The girl comes to the café on Monday. It’s a long week before you can pick up the pieces.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	A Week at the café

The girl comes to the café on Monday. She orders only sugar and crumbs, spreads them like patterns of foreign stars on the formica tables. The sounds she makes could be laughter, or tears, or something else entirely. She leaves when a dog comes and fetches her. The dog leaves a nice tip behind. It’s not even slobbery.

On Tuesday she follows a fish to her table, the leash in her hand is a ribbon to keep the fish from flying away. The colors in her hair have shifted like a prism on the not-quite-wrong angle. She asks for tea and nibbles the leaves one by one as she stares out of the window.

On the Wednesday she doesn’t ask for anything. The sky outside fractures and breaks into thousands of starlings. They scream all at once and then are gone. There is nothing left in their wake, a colorless void where the sky should be and it is so wrong that you scream.

“I have gone mad,” you say. 

“Yes,” she cheers. Her voice is warbled, as if she is too many people trying to speak at once. “But only for a little bit.” Silver flecks dance in her eyes, shifting from the green eye to her one blue eye. “I am not allowed to lock myself in my realm anymore so I am waiting for my sibling.”

She doesn’t leave.

When Thursday comes, you realize that neither have you. In the reflections of the mirror in the bathroom and the chrome of the espresso machine you keep catching the face of a woman. She is nearly bald, fat, her skin grey like linen left to rot. She worries her lip with a ring, cutting it over and over so that the bright crimson blood pearls to the surface.

“You’re not the sibling I want,” the girl says. “And you can’t have her.” 

The woman leaves from the windows where thick oily rain is making rippled statues in the wind.

When he walks in, shrouded in the vapors of his drinking and his rage, you’ve had enough. You’re already mad, afterall. You tell him to leave, and you cause a scene and the memories that he lied about all come back now. He moves to tower over you and there is the briefest moment, a flash of pink and green and fishnet. He screams and curls into a ball and leaves walking on all four like an ape. Or a pig.

On Friday, a tall man walks in. He is dressed all in white, with white hair and white skin so pale it might be paper. A large emerald hangs from his neck and his eyes are dark like the night sky. Stars burn, in their depths.

“Time to go, sister,” he says. 

The girl wraps you in a hug and saunters out to him. “It’s alright now,” she says. You’re free now. There is only you left in your head.” 


End file.
